Thanks Deputy Speaker.

 

Espionage and foreign interference are now our country’s principal national security threat.

 

The scale of this challenge is unprecedented.

 

Threats to our way of life increasingly demand that we shift our focus, with espionage and foreign interference now more prominent threats.

 

The threat from hostile foreign powers and their proxies is pervasive, multi-faceted and has the potential to cause serious harm to our sovereignty, values, and national interest.

 

The interplay of existing challenges with new and emerging ones has changed how we think about these threats.

 

A foreign power can simultaneously be interfering, spying, and using cyber means to position for sabotage, for example.

 

These threats originate from multiple countries—not just those that might be considered traditional adversaries.

 

In his 2023 threat assessment, the director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, Mike Burgess, warned of a ‘hive of spies’ targeting Australians in unprecedented number and with growing sophistication.

 

Foreign intelligence services have used cash to try to corrupt businesspeople, officials, and anyone they could influence to try to work for them.

 

They target journalists, commentators, veterans, even judges.

 

They hack into any database giving them access to the sensitive personal information of Australian citizens.

 

They attempt to compromise our journalists by luring them with lucrative “study tours” overseas to gain privileged information, only to be introduced to spies in-country.

 

These spies then use these opportunities to ingratiate themselves with the reporters, try to elicit insights on political, economic, defence and other issues, and identify any vulnerabilities that could be leveraged later.

 

We have seen disturbing reports of former ADF members travelling overseas to sell their training and expertise to foreign governments for hundreds of thousands of dollars and other significant perks.

 

We have read reports of Australia’s defence industry being increasingly targeted since September 2021, when U.S. President Joe Biden, then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and then-Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the AUKUS agreement to provide Australia with nuclear-powered, conventionally armed submarines.

 

And we have seen evidence of foreign governments intervening in our diaspora communities to choke communities’ ability to protest and to express their views freely and democratically, as is their right as Australians.

 

Foreign interference and espionage are a big threat to our national security and ASIO works around the clock to protect Australians from it.

 

This threat is deliberately designed to undermine our democracy and our values.

 

And it goes on every day of the week.

 

To quote Mike Burgess:

 

“Based on what ASIO is seeing, more Australians are being targeted for espionage and foreign interference than at any time in Australia’s history – more hostile foreign intelligence services, more spies, more targeting, more harm, more ASIO investigations, more ASIO disruptions…From where I sit, it feels like hand-to-hand combat.”

 

He added that: “This means ASIO is busier than ever before. Busier than any time in our 74-year history. Busier than the Cold War; busier than 9/11; busier than the height of the caliphate.”

 

That chilling assessment is worth reflecting on.

 

Australians are now targeted in greater numbers by foreign intelligence services and other threat actors than they were even at the height of the Cold War, after 9/11, and in the fight against ISIS.

 

ASIO’s annual report for 2021-22 showed that the threat from hostile foreign powers was now the number one concern, overtaking the threat of religiously motivated extremists and nationalist and racist extremists.

 

That is simply extraordinary.

But what is even more extraordinary is that some Australians appear not to take the threat seriously enough, with Mike Burgess noting in his annual update that he had been counselled by individuals in business, academia, and the public service that ASIO should ease up its operational responses to avoid upsetting foreign regimes.

 

Of course, people are entitled to their views but the reasons they offered ranged from: 'All countries spy on each other', to 'We were going to make the information public anyway', and 'The foreign government might make things difficult for us'.

 

And that is disappointing.

 

As Treasurer Jim Chalmers said, it is concerning that those Australians in positions of influence were not taking the threat of foreign interference seriously.

 

Because the threat of espionage and foreign interference is real and growing and it is capable of ruining people’s lives.

 

Understanding and degrading the espionage and foreign interference activities of Australia’s adversaries is among the most challenging types of intelligence work.

 

ASIO works with all government agencies and the private sector to increase awareness of the threat and to implement effective mitigation strategies.

 

It focusses on two key areas.

 

ASIO discovers espionage and foreign interference and degrades their impacts.

 

And it hardens Australian Government defences against clandestine espionage and foreign interference.

 

As it pursues both, the Albanese Government is taking decisive action to ensure our nation’s secrets – our most sensitive information and capabilities – are protected.

 

And we are ensuring our intelligence community can recruit the people they need – people that we can trust – to protect our nation’s secrets for years to come.

 

That is what this Bill is all about.

 

This Bill will harden our security environment by establishing a new National TOP SECRET-Privileged Access Authority within ASIO.

 

The TSPA Authority will be centrally responsible for issuing Australia’s new highest level of security clearance – the TS-PA clearance.

 

This will replace the existing Top Secret Positive Vetting (PV) clearance over time.

 

The new TS-PA clearance is underpinned by a new TS-PA Standard, which establishes stronger mandatory minimum security clearance requirements.

 

The TSPA standard reflects contemporary psychological and insider threat research.

 

Under the Australian Government Protective Security Policy Framework (PSPF), persons who require access to security classified information or resources must hold a security clearance at the appropriate level.

 

The purpose of the security vetting process is to determine whether an individual is suitable to hold a security clearance.

 

This involves an assessment of whether a person has the demonstrated integrity and loyalty to be trusted to protect Australia’s classified information and resources.

 

Currently, there are several vetting agencies who issue TSPV clearances.

 

These include AGSVA, ASIO, ONI and ASIS.

 

This creates inefficiencies with the recognition of clearances, mobility of staff, and duplication of resources.

 

This Bill will help to fix these inefficiencies.

 

Over time, ASIO-issued TS-PA security clearances will replace Positive Vetting (PV) security clearances.

 

The PV operations of those vetting agencies presently authorised under the Commonwealth’s Protective Security Policy Framework will be transitioned to ASIO.

 

The reforms will drive shared initiatives and investments that improve interoperability and burden-sharing as the Australian Government delivers critical national security capabilities.

 

It will also improve the mobility and agility of our highest-cleared workforce, allowing the Australian Government to flexibly direct resources to its highest priorities.

 

Centralising Australia’s highest-level clearance in ASIO will also harden our security environment.

 

It means that ASIO can leverage its security expertise and existing holdings to assess a person’s suitability for a security clearance, having regard to the most current and accurate information about the security threats confronting Australia.

 

This helps us to put a stop to those who seek to do us harm.

 

If a foreign government is trying to steal our secrets – by planting foreign spies among our intelligence community, or recruiting those from within – ASIO is the agency equipped to deal with this threat.

 

Oversight and accountability of the intelligence community remains essential under a Labor Government.

 

The Bill will create a consistent, stronger review framework for security clearance decisions and assessments.

 

This will mean that those who are affected by adverse decisions will have clear rights of review – including internal and external merits review.

 

It will also enable the operations of the Quality Assurance Office (QAO) in the Office of National Intelligence (ONI).

 

The QAO will be established to independently assure the quality and consistency of clearances being issued by ASIO.

 

ASIO would continue to be overseen by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS), who has powers akin to a Royal Commission.

 

This reform shows how seriously Labor takes national security.

 

We listen to the experts.

 

We heard the Director-General of Security, when he said that more Australians are being targeted for espionage and foreign interference than at any time in Australia’s history.

 

That is what we are seeing and hearing not just from ASIO but from a range of Government agencies.

 

It is critically important that in this context we ensure the Commonwealth’s most privileged information, capabilities and secrets are protected.

 

It is commonly said by many, indeed by this Government, and I think by anyone across the Chamber with a strategic bone in their body, that we live in the most challenging strategic environment since the Second World War.

 

It is so commonly said that we sometime forget exactly what this means.

 

It means that even the Cold War, with all the peril of nuclear war that hung over the whole world, did not represent as direct a threat to Australia’s sovereignty as the present does.

 

And that the only worst time within living memory for Australian security was the carnage of the last world war that was fought over and around our sea lanes and approaches.

 

Many of us in public life acknowledge this sobering fact.

 

We should also pay tribute to the intelligence community, whose job it is to help Australia navigate the storms around us, to give our leaders warning and foresight of dangers.

 

We rightly honour the military in our country, whose job it is to always be ready to defend Australia when our strategic circumstances go from uncertain to cataclysmic.

 

And we should also honour the highly capable men and women of our intelligence agencies who keep us safe.

 

Labor, as I said, listens to the experts on national security.

 

And we also listen to calls to strike a fine balance between empowering the intelligence agencies that protect us from growing threats while enhancing the already high standards of transparency and accountability in the National Intelligence Community.

 

That is what the National Security Legislation Amendment (Comprehensive Review Attorney-General’s Portfolio) Bill 2023 before the House, on which I spoke last month, also proposes.

 

Because we understand that to do their job properly, the NIC needs the trust of the Australian public.

 

And of this Parliament.

 

Which is why this proposed new National TOP SECRET-Privileged Access Authority within ASIO is so important.

 

It will safeguard the integrity of our most sensitive classified information and our most important asset – our people – from those who would seek to use them to do us harm.

 

And that is clearly in the national interest.

Thanks Deputy Speaker.